In digital cameras, wide-angle lenses may be used to capture a wide panoramic picture using a field of view (FOV) of 60 degrees or more for a usual wide-angle lens, and even over 180 degrees or more for ultra-wide angle lenses. The angles are centered at the focal point of the camera. Such lenses may be found on dedicated cameras, smartphones, digital security and surveillance (DSS) devices, vehicle cameras, and many other electronic devices with cameras. The wide-angle lenses initially provide a distorted image where objects on the image appear to have unrealistic shapes. For example, objects with flat surfaces appear curved and other objects have unusual warped shapes. These conventional wide-angle lens cameras have image processing units (IPUs) that correct the distortion in the images. Such camera IPUs balance a number of requirements while correcting the distortion. The distortion correction should be sufficiently accurate to provide a high quality image while also providing high performance so that the images can be provided in real time to meet video playback or transmission requirements, and all while performing such computations with relatively low power consumption so that the distortion correction can be performed on small devices with low power capacity. Conventional systems that perform the distortion correction, even with the use of hardware-accelerated solutions, may provide adequate performance and low power consumption, but often fail to provide a good quality image as well.